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JlRI SUBRT
THE CIVILIZATION THEORY OF NORBERT ELIAS TODAY
In The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations (1939) Norbert Elias formulated a theory to explain the long-term process of continuous change that led to the emergence of modern society. His theory encompasses both the development of human personality structures and behaviour (psychogenetic research) and the development of the social structures of inequality, power, and order (sociogenetic research). Violence and its control are central themes of the theory of the civilizing process. On the question of why the de-civilization processes occur, Elias failed to answer satisfactorily. For his students and followers this omission is a motivation to consider furthering Elias's thinking.
Keywords: civilization, civilizing process, psychogenesis, sociogenesis, self-restraint, de-civilization.
The concept of civilization is used in the social sciences in both singular and plural. The singular we encounter when considering the universal historical process of development in which what is called civilization takes shape, develops and is transformed. The plural is most often used to compare various civilizations in terms of their socio-cultural formations.
The concept of civilization in the singular occurs in roughly four different contexts1. In the first, which is now often regarded as politically incorrect, the term simply refers to a "civilized way of life", meaning certain achieved forms of human coexistence, rules and standards. In the second case, civilization becomes a synonym for social progress in terms of the historical development of human capabilities (we can find this understanding in Marx when he speaks of the "civilizing mission" of capitalism which he associated with the development of productive forces and the territorial expansion of the capitalist mode of production). The third concept, associated with an effort to draw a certain dividing line between the different stages of history, appears in anthropology, archaeology and prehistory (an example is Lewis Henry Morgan, who uses the expression "civilization" for the third epoch of human development, replacing the stage of savagery and barbarism). The fourth case is the most important in terms of historical sociology because it is represented by the civilization theory of Norbert Elias, in which he talks about the process of civilization, where changes in human behaviour relate to the development
1 Arnason J.P., Subrt J. Kultury, civilizace, svetovy systém. Praha: Karolinum, 2010. P. 10.
of forms of human coexistence and society. Reviewing all four concepts, it is obvious the concept of civilization in the singular can be seen as evaluative if used to distinguish between the civilized and uncivilized. In this sense it meets with objections from cultural relativists. In this paper, however, we focus on issues related to the civilization theory of Norbert Elias.
The Life and Work of Norbert Elias
Norbert Elias (born 1897) was a "sociological loner" for most of his life. He only became known and widely recognised in his old age, after the third German edition of his two-volume work, The Civilizing Process (Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation)2.
Elias graduated in 1924 in Breslau, and in the years 1925-1930 he worked in Heidelberg under Alfred Weber. Here he got to know Karl Mannheim, whom he followed in 1930 to the university of Frankfurt am Main. In 1933 Elias was prevented from gaining his habilitation3 in Frankfurt because of his Jewish origins and he went into exile, first to Paris and then in 1935 to London. The first edition of his work The Civilizing Process came out almost unnoticed in Switzerland in 1939, at the beginning of the war. After the war Elias worked as a teacher in London. In 1954 he was appointed a lecturer and later reader at the University of Leicester. In the years 1962-1964 he worked in Ghana in West Africa in a professorial capacity. From the 1970s he lived alternately in Holland and Germany. He died in 1990 in Amsterdam.
In the course of the 1980s Elias's individual works were gradually published in book form and the circle of his admirers, until then composed mainly of a tight group of friends and personal students, expanded with unusual rapidity. This fact, together with what is today a relatively large amount of secondary literature, indicates that the "Eliasian orientation" represents, in contemporary sociology, a significant current and one that cannot be overlooked. This current is connected above all to two major themes: a) the theory of civilization, and b) figurational sociology.
In his work The Civilizing Process Elias formulated a theory of the development of human personality structures and modes of behaviour (psychoge-
2 Elias N. Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation: Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen. Wandlungen des Verhaltens in den weltlichen Oberschichten des Abendlandes. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1976. Bd. 1-2.
3 The work was published after the Second World War in a revised form under the title The Court Society (Die höfische Gesellschaft): Elias N. Die höfische Gesellschaft: Untersuchungen zur Soziologie des Königtums und der höfischen Aristokratie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983.
netic investigation), and the development of the social structures of inequality, power and order (sociogenic investigation). Elias showed that these two developmental processes were mutually dependent. Two related theories emerge from a synthetic overview: the theory of civilization (relating to changes affecting personality and behaviour) and the theory of state formation.
In his study of the civilizing process in western societies Elias used what were, for his time, relatively unusual research materials: Medieval writings on polite behaviour, morals and customs, epic literature and contemporary pictorial evidence. He focused on table manners, bodily functions such as blowing one's nose or spitting, behaviour in the bedroom, relations between men and women, and the life of knights.
In the early Middle Ages behaviour was less regulated (people ate with their fingers, blew their noses into their hands, often spat etc.) and more determined by spontaneous affections and urges (expressed, for example, in the aggressive behaviour of knights). This kind of behaviour changed only slightly during the medieval period, and only the end of the Middle Ages brought increasing refinement (one example was the introduction of forks at table). A new quality can be perceived in the period of the Renaissance, when not only were habits previously considered normal declared to be "uncivilized" and inappropriate, but the whole question acquired a different character. People began to monitor their own behaviour in a systematic way, and to regulate it according to new prescriptions. On the basis of observation of others their motives and intentions could be judged. People moulded themselves with greater self-consciousness than in the Middle Ages. From the observation of self and others a new relationship developed between man and man — a new form of integration. During the XVIIth century this process accelerated and culminated in the etiquette of court society.
This was not, of course, just a matter of gradual refinement of manners. The regulation of behaviour is above all the result of a process of the modelling of personality, i. e. psychogenesis. What is characteristic of this process is the continuous repression of urges and affections in human behaviour. By the creation of particular standards of shame and embarrassment, an invisible barrier is erected around individuals. A shift in the control of urges and affections is accomplished first by external restraint (Fremdzwang); but if it is to be permanent it must be transformed into a self-restraint (Selbstzwang), that functions automatically and independent of situation4. A psychic structure is formed which,
4 Elias N. Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation: Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen. Wandlungen des Verhaltens in den weltlichen Oberschichten des Abendlandes. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1976. Bd. 1. S. 170-194.
in Freudian terminology, might be called the super-ego, and to which in ordinary speech we give such names as conscience. This is the structure which as an apparatus of self-control is internalised by individuals through socialisation.
Elias demonstrates the mutual interdependency of psychogenesis and sociogenesis in relation, for example, to the problem of aggression. Historical sources give us a picture of knights who spend their lives destroying, pillaging, killing and torturing others. This was part of the accepted norm in a society of warriors. Behaviour dominated by the affections and an aggression governed by spontaneous emotions were the counterpart of a society in which there was a low level of order and integration, and in which threats, sudden assaults, robbery and murder were daily occurrences.
In a pacified society, by contrast, the individual has sufficient security to renounce violence himself. Social regulation is carried out in the form of a state monopoly on the exercise of violence. At the level of the individual this creates the conditions for psychic regulation, the control of the affections and the blocking of aggressive impulses.
The understanding of social reality as a process plays a key role in Elias's sociological thought. Social processes take place in configurations arising continuously, unplanned and without design. They usually have the character of rise or decline, while the shift from one gradation of the process to another is accompanied by a relocation of power. The fluctuating balance of power forms an integral element of all human relations.
During his life Elias developed his thoughts and suggestions in The Civilizing Process in a series of studies that alternated between the extensive and the narrow, such as The Society of Individuals (Die Gesellschaft der Individuen)5, works on sport6, the books Time (Über die Zeit)1 and The Germans (Studien über die Deutschen)8, or the smaller piece, The Loneliness of the Dying (Über die Einsamkeit der Sterbenden in unseren Tagen)9.
The works in which Elias's views on sociology are formulated explicitly come mainly from his later creative period. Two works are particularly
5 Elias N. Die Gesellschaft der Individuen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1987.
6 Elias N., Dunning E. Sport im Zivilisationsprozeß: Studien zur Figurationssoziologie. Münster: Lit-Verlag, 1983; Elias N., DuningE. Quest for Excitement: Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.
7 Elias N. Über die Zeit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984.
8 Elias N. Studien über die Deutschen: Machtkämpfe und Habitusentwicklung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert / Hrsg. Schröter M. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992.
9 Elias N. Über die Einsamkeit der Sterbenden in unseren Tagen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986.
important here — What is Sociology? (Was ist Soziologie?)10, Involvement and Detachment (Engagement und Distanzierung)11 — and the article On the Foundations of the Theory of Social Processes (Zur Grundlegung einer Theorie sozialer Prozesse)12. The problem of social inequality is the subject of Elias's study The Established and the Outsiders (Etablierte und Außenseiter)13 written in collaboration with John L. Scotson.
The extensive discussion provoked by these works shows that Elias's conceptions had grown and developed into an entire new social scientific paradigm. It is also remarkable that in contrast to postmodern irony and scepticism in regard to meta-narration, this paradigm emerges with the accent once again on the long-term historical perspective.
How to understand Elias today
A characteristic feature of Elias's sociological thinking is processuality. His exploratory interest is attracted by processes of continuous, long-term change. These are processes that take place accidentally and unintentionally. Their defining characteristic is bipolarity. This corresponds with the conceptual instruments intended for their study — conceptual pairs such as integration and disintegration, or rise and fall. Another special feature is their persistence and the constant direction that some of them take over the centuries (although unlike the biological process of evolution they can even move in reverse). Elias speaks about directions of social processes (independent of whether they are evaluated as "good" or "bad") and about the shifts and breakthroughs from one processual grade to another (accompanied by the transfer of power). Shifts of various kinds and intensities can be held simultaneously whereas changes in one direction can make space for changes in the opposite direction; the predominant process of integration can be accompanied by a partial disintegration, or, conversely, the dominant process of disintegration could lead to a new type of reintegration.
It is often stated that throughout its history mankind has made progress in many areas, evidenced by all sorts of criteria. However, Elias considered the idea of many-sided progress as a myth. Nevertheless that does not mean that social development cannot have a specific direction; however, it does not
10 Elias N. Was ist Soziologie? München: Juventa Verlag, 1981.
11 Elias N. Engagement und Distanzierung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983.
12 Elias N. Zur Grundlegung einer Theorie sozialer Prozesse // Zeitschrift für Soziologie. 1977. Jg. 6. S. 127-149.
13 Elias N, Scotson J.L. Etablierte und Außenseiter. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1990.
do so necessarily and under all circumstances. When studying development dynamics, it is appropriate to talk not of necessity, but of possibilities and probabilities of various degrees14. The idea that the discernment of long-term development in the past automatically implies that the same trend necessarily weighs on the future, is false according to Elias.
The author considers the constant clash of civilizing processes with de-civilizing processes (entzivilisierende Gegenprozesse)15 characteristic of recent development (from the Stone Age to the present days). Civilizing and de-civilizing processes have their directions. The direction of the civilizing process is due to shifts in the balance of internal and external regulators of behaviour in favour of self-control. De-civilization means a movement in the opposite direction, which is also characterized by shrinking of self-identification and sympathy with others. In spite of repeated manifestations of de-civilizing processes, according to Elias the civilizing process is predominant. However, there is no reason to believe that this must happen in the future. An especial caution in this respect is the mass genocide committed by German Nazis (which refuted the false impression that such barbarism was not possible in the XXth century)16 .
It is obvious that despite the impressive scope of Elias's work The Civilizing Process and the vast range of problems it surveys, it is possible to think how this could or should be extended by a fuller application of civilization theory, and which additional questions could be or should be taken into account. Elias himself definitely did not consider his conception as dogma. Not only did he return to his conception in his later studies, he also added a number of correctives.
When assessing The Civilizing Process it may be alleged, among other things, that its author devoted too little attention to the spheres of religion (even though he did not miss it out), art (but later he devoted a separate study to Mozart), labour, production and technology (thus his interpretation differs from conceptions of civilization emphasizing only the development of this sector); meanwhile only a limited part dealt with the Church and the bourgeoisie. Some criticism from historians may point to the fact that Elias's image of medieval knights accentuated the dark shades of brutality and neglected the spiritual dimension (even though this is not entirely clear if we take into account Elias's analysis of courteousness).
14 Elias N. Was ist Soziologie? S. 181.
15 Elias N. Zivilisation // Schäfers B. (hrsg.). Grundbegriffe der Soziologie. Bd. 3. Aufl. Opladen: Leske-Budrich, 1992. S. 383.
16 Elias N, DunningE. Sport im Zivilisationsprozeß: Studien zur Figurationssoziologie. S. 33.
Among all polemical voices the complaint that Elias ignored the historical significance of the bourgeoisie is heard especially clearly. This is no coincidence. While in the German sociology of the XIXth century and early XXth century bourgeoisie and capitalism were the dominant topics of sociological research, Elias, both in his habilitation work and in civilization diptych, set out to devote particular attention to the nobility. For Marx and Weber a statement of fundamental difference between the era of the bourgeoisie, i. e. capitalism, and the previous period is a signature characteristic. According to some of Elias's critics, concentration on the figurative dynamics of the courtly society led to a failure on his part to examine the revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie, which after all had led to the collapse of the royal absolutist mechanism.
It should be pointed out that Elias did not deny this historical role of the bourgeoisie; however, he interpreted the end of absolutism somewhat differently than through the Marxist theory of class struggle (Elias did not understand the bourgeoisie as a homogeneous class from the interests point of view, but he distinguished in it groups whose interests were associated with the maintenance of state privileges, and groups whose interest was to remove state privileges and the hierarchy). To the relationship of bourgeois classes and the nobility, Elias devoted a whole chapter of the second volume of his works The Civilizing Process11. If he accentuated the problems of the nobility and court, he had his reasons for this.
The decisive phase of psychogenesis and sociogenesis (of the State) took place in his opinion before the bourgeois revolution and can be clarified through an examination of the "balance of power" within the absolutist configuration of the nobility.
What raises greater embarrassment in some of Elias's pupils and followers is the fact that although the theory of civilization does not definitely imply a certain and clear vision of the positive development of society, it does emphasise the more pleasant of the two faces of long-term social processes; in this respect it is not dissimilar to some older conceptions of social progress. To a lesser extent it has also manifested, Janus-like, a face to which other thinkers pointed in the first half of the XXth century, among whom we can (omitting program pessimists of the type of O. Spengler) recall at least two, Sigmund Freud on the one hand (who drew attention to links between
11 Elias N. Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation: Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen. Wandlungen des Verhaltens in den weltlichen Oberschichten des Abendlandes. Bd. 2. S. 409-434.
oppressive civilizational power and increasing personality disorders — neuroses) and Edmund Husserl one the other (with his analysis of the crisis of European thought and sciences).
Polemical and doubting voices address Elias's civilization theory not infrequently from the camp of cultural anthropology. In the polemics of cultural anthropologists we encounter the arguments of cultural relativism. Among the critical objections are accusations of ethnocentrism, arising from the fact that civilization is based on the theory of comparative approaches, in which different historical periods and developmental stages are compared. If, for us, today is more civilized than the past; if we attribute to western countries a higher degree of control over affections than people in developing countries, then these comparisons can be relatively easily interpreted as evaluative judgments. The danger that such comparisons can be considered ethnocentric bias, was warned of by Anton Blok, Elias's former pupil. In the lecture Primitive and Civilized18 he deals with the conceptual antithesis of primitive and civilized. He concludes that these and similar terms are used to legitimize the superiority of one group ("civilized") over the other group ("primitive"). He reprimanded Elias in this context, even accusing him of racism.
The most extensive effort to challenge and deny Elias's civilization theory was developed by cultural anthropologist Hans Peter Duerr (born 1943), the author of the 5-volume work Der Mythos vom Zivilisationsprozeß19. Duerr advances the opinion that Elias's theory is false, that it is a pure myth. In his opinion this myth is identical with the ideology of colonialism that sees other cultures as "uncivilized", even the cultures of our own past. Duerr is not willing to formulate any other theory; he merely puts forward a heap of evidence attempting to falsify Elias's theory20.
18 Blok A. Primitief en geciviliseerd // Sociologisch Gids. 1982. N 3-4. S. 197-209.
19 Duerr H.P. Der Mythos vom Zivilisationsprozeß. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 19882002. Bd. 1-5.
20 His approach is based on two steps. First, in his interpretative approach he converts Elias's theory into the form of few general propositions; subsequently he collects extensive empirical material to refute these theses. Duerr abstracts from changes in social macro-structures; he is not interested in topics such as law, power, military, manufacturing, technology, transportation, etc. Civilization theory is interpreted as a theory of the evolutionary development of affection regulation that leads to linear transformations of the mental habits of people in the direction of growth of shame boundaries and barriers of embarrassment and a simultaneous reduction of aggression and cruelty. Duerr criticizes Elias, arguing that the empirical material was adjusted to a pre-conceived theory, used tendentiously and interpreted incorrectly.
Elias (Elias N. Was ich unter Zivilisation verstehe: Antwort auf Hans Peter Duerr // Die Zeit. 1988. 17.06. N 25. S. 37) participated in a discussion with Duerr himself arguing that Duerr was deliberately blind to the facts that illustrate the historical differences in the development
In connection with these attacks we must mention that Elias's theory did not work with the dichotomy of primitive—civilized (used by older generations of cultural anthropologists), this alien approach was foisted on him by opponents. In addition, Elias's conception of the civilizing process is not unambiguously a positive and optimistic one; civilization is associated with human generated pressures, repressions and alienation21. Since the concept of civilization was held so ambiguously by Elias, some of the mentioned criticisms lose their foundation. Definitely it cannot be said that Elias would adopt the ethnocentric perspective of promoting the Western European civilization model as a model for the rest of the world. He was apparently aware of the risk of ethnocentrism, which was why he insisted on a value-neutral approach to the study of his own society. In his later works Elias corrected his vocabulary, no longer talking of "higher" and "lower" but of "other" degrees of civilization.
An important aspect of the contemporary debates over Elias's works is the question of what trend is dominating in the current development phase: shifts in accordance with the "civilization" line of development, or "contra-shifts" against it? It cannot be denied that over the XXth century even de-civilization tendencies might be detected. In 1986 Edmund Leach wrote that when Elias formulated his theory of civilizing process, Hitler was contradicting it massively22. It seems that at present — due to the atrocities committed in the name of ideology, leader, nation or race — it is easier to talk about de-civilization than civilization. Modern "civilized" people are able to destroy and kill on an unprecedented scale.
Violence and its control are central themes of the theory of the civilizing process, yet people do not feel safe in city streets; they are threatened by terrorist attacks; there are wars in various places around the globe and, over all, there hangs the threat of the mass annihilation of mankind by modern weapons. Space, which Elias dealt with in his major work, is stigmatized by the word Holocaust. All these facts raise natural doubts about the verity of Elias's theory.
of individual self-regulation. To support his ideas he mentioned the example of learning: the time which is now used to acquire knowledge that one needs to perform an adult function in society, in comparison with the past, is significantly extended. This results in the separation of biological maturity from social maturity. In earlier societies the learning phase was not so long and the transition from childhood to adulthood was smoother compared with today.
21 The evidence of that is for example Elias's study The Loneliness of the Dying: Elias N. Über die Einsamkeit der Sterbenden in unseren Tagen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986.
22 Leach E. Violence // London Review of Books. 1986. Vol. 23. № 10. P. 13-14.
Elias says that when he saw with his own eyes in the 1930s the barbarous shift (Barbarisierungsschub) which occurred in Germany, it prompted him to pose the question of how it was possible that in the XXth century the civilized conscience of a highly civilized nation could collapse23. Because he realized how little was known about the sociogenesis and psychogenesis of civilized behaviour and its control mechanisms, he began to address this problem. In the foreword to the The Civilizing Process, he pointed out that the questions he asked in the book did not arise from existing scientific tradition but from experience of the world in which he lived, from the experience of crisis and transformation of current Western civilization24.
Elias completed his work at a time when the "final solution" had not acquired its ultimate form, but many features of the Nazi regime were already obvious. Some manifestations seemed ominous. They draw attention to the fragility and vulnerability of civilizational achievements; civilized manners take long to shape, but they can be quickly destroyed. On the question of why such de-civilization processes occur, Elias failed to answer satisfactorily. For his students and followers this omission is a motivation to consider furthering Elias's thinking.
Since control of violent tendencies is so central to the theory of the civilizing process, the feeling that we live in a world where there is more violence than before is one that has sown doubts about the theory's correctness. Elias did not expand on his theory of de-civilization, but there are nevertheless many places in his work in which we can find a number of pregnant, original thoughts on this problem.
Elias's conception of the civilizing process is not an unambiguously positive and optimistic one: civilization is linked to the pressures, repressions and alienation created by people. One of the major driving forces of social processes is tension and conflicts related to the monopolisation of the means of power. A considerable proportion of humanity is now involved in these struggles for sovereignty. Thus potential future development could easily take one of two very contradictory lines: there is the possibility of advance in the direction of widespread integration and pacification, but also the possibility of disintegration and self-destruction.
Although Elias did not develop the theory of de-civilization we can still find a number of imaginative, original ideas on this problem. The implicit
23 Elias N. Studien über die Deutschen: Machtkämpfe und Habitusentwicklung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. S. 45.
24 Elias N. Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation: Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen. Wandlungen des Verhaltens in den weltlichen Oberschichten des Abendlandes. Bd. 1. S. LXXX.
model of the de-civilization process sometimes used to be called the interpretation of feudalisation in the second part of The Civilizing Process. Attempts to elaborate de-civilization theory in terms of Elias's way of thinking derive mainly from the analysis contained in the book The Germans25.
Elias among other things shows that from a historical point of view the mass slaughter of defeated enemies is no surprise, on the contrary for a long time it went without saying. For modern society the trend is dual: modern technology makes possible the unprecedented expansion of killing behaviour, while in public opinion mass killing is denounced and the growth of empathy with other people is a symptom of civilization. Elias characterizes the Nazi era by concepts such as the barbarization shift, civilization regress, re-barbarization26. He denounces the Holocaust of Jews as a return to the atrocities and barbarism of the old times21. Elias also pointed out that the slaughter of Jews arose from certain tendencies natural to the structure of the XXth century society; these actions were rationally planned and managed, they were based on the use of an efficient bureaucracy and modern technology (so, for example, as shown by Hannah Arendt, people like Adolf Eichmann did not have to pull the trigger, they "only" sat at the table and carefully worked out timetables). However, Elias at this point does not go into deeper analysis and greater detail. Among the authors who have tried to develop Elias's considerations into a theory of de-civilization processes is Jonathan Fletcher28.
In 1988, Elias responding to H.P. Duerr, returned to considerations regarding the concept of civilization. He said that when he was preparing to write a book about long-term changes of human feelings and behaviour in the 1930s, he wanted to show that they do not arise from the plans and goals of individuals or groups, but in reality unexpectedly, by the overlapping intentions of many individuals. According to Elias the problem lies in the fact that language offers expression and explanation of such social facts that already have a certain ideological character29. This does not concern only the concept of civilization, but also other related concepts — evolution,
25 Elias N. Studien über die Deutschen: Machtkämpfe und Habitusentwicklung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert.
26 Ibid. S. 45.
21 Ibid. S. 394.
28 Fletcher J. Violence and Civilization: An Introduction to the Work of Norbert Elias. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991.
29 Elias N. Was ich unter Zivilisation verstehe: Antwort auf Hans Peter Duerr // Die Zeit. 1988. 11.06. № 25. S. 31.
social development, growth, progress. All these terms belong to the core of a once highly appreciated social ideology that in the course of the modern historical events completely lost its persuasiveness; they were part of the belief in progress which assumed that human society is inevitably adapted so that it continually comes near to a desirable state of greater happiness for most of the people. Events of the XXth century caused the collapse of this ideal. It left trauma and confusion. The pain of lost faith manifested itself in a strong backlash. Anything what even remotely reminded of belief in progress, including the concept of civilization, was discredited. Therefore, this concept should be re-examined and clarified. Elias says that he was looking around for other possible concepts, but did not find any more appropriate. Therefore he finally decided to keep this concept and use it in close association with rich empirical documentary material as an ideologically neutral, factual concept and also as a key concept of the theory of civilizing processes. It is in this light that we should consider a truer analysis of civilisation.
